CHAPTER 16

PROTECTING THE SECOND ASSET

The second asset was harder to move than the first.

The logistics subsidiary had been quiet enough. A private entity. Limited oversight. The kind of holding people only noticed when it started bleeding money. This one was different. The riverside development package sat closer to the center of the family’s visible wealth — three commercial plots, a half-finished residential tower, and the long-term lease rights that made the whole package valuable. In the original timeline Chloe had used it as collateral to secure her first independent line of credit. By the time I understood what she had done, the paper trail was already clean and the debt was already mine in everything but name.

I wasn’t going to watch that happen again.

I started at midnight.

The lawyer who had handled the first transfer met me in a different office this time — a rented conference room in a building that had no connection to Laurent Holdings. No company servers. No shared calendars. He looked tired but unsurprised. People who worked with families like mine learned quickly not to ask unnecessary questions.

“You’re sure about the structure?” he asked as he opened the laptop.

“Sole control. No secondary signatories. No emergency override for the family trust.”

“That will raise flags if anyone looks closely.”

“Then make sure they have to look very closely.”

He nodded once and began the process.

There were more steps this time. Valuation confirmations. Layered ownership through two intermediate entities. A delayed public filing that would keep the change invisible for seventy-two hours. I sat across from him in silence, reading every page before I signed. My hand remained steady. The only sound in the room was the soft click of keys and the occasional turn of paper.

At 1:14 a.m. he turned the screen toward me.

“Final authorization. Once I submit this, the transfer enters the system. You’ll get confirmation when it clears the last registry check.”

I looked at the summary one more time.

Then I placed my thumb on the biometric pad and signed.

The lawyer exhaled through his nose. “It’s done. Now we wait.”

Waiting was the worst part.

I left the building alone and drove back to my apartment through empty streets. The city felt different at this hour — less like a place where people lived and more like a machine running on residual heat. I parked in the underground garage and took the elevator up without seeing another person.

Inside the apartment I didn’t turn on the main lights. I left only the desk lamp on and sat with my phone face up beside the laptop.

The confirmation could take twenty minutes or three hours. There was no way to rush the registry.

I tried to work. I opened the Langley comparison files and stared at the same three paragraphs without absorbing them. My mind kept returning to the riverside package. In the original future I had signed the documents Ethan put in front of me because I trusted him. I had smiled when Chloe said she was only trying to help lighten my load. I had watched the asset leave my control in slow motion and told myself it was temporary.

It hadn’t been temporary.

Nothing they took had ever been temporary.

At 2:03 a.m. my phone vibrated once.

I picked it up so quickly the motion looked violent in the dark glass of the window.

One message from the lawyer.

**Cleared.**

No celebration. No extra words. Just the single confirmation that the second piece was no longer where Chloe expected it to be.

I sat very still.

Then I forwarded the confirmation to the encrypted folder and deleted the original thread.

For a moment the apartment felt too quiet. The kind of quiet that made the earlier anonymous messages feel closer than they should have. Someone else was watching the changes I made. Someone who had known about the blue notebook. Someone who was not Seiberstin.

I locked the phone and set it down.

That was when the second message arrived.

Different number. No preview text. Just a notification.

I opened it.

One word.

**Faster.**

No punctuation. No explanation.

Seiberstin.

I stared at the screen.

He had known about the first transfer. He had known about the charity dinner. He had known enough to meet me in that private club and tell me I was creating new branches. Now he knew about this one too — within minutes of the registry clearing.

The phone felt heavier in my hand.

I typed a reply.

How do you know?

The answer came almost immediately.

You’re not the only one watching the registries. You’re just the only one who thinks secrecy is the same as safety.

I read the line twice.

Another message followed.

The riverside package was the correct second move. But you’re still leaving too much time between actions. Chloe’s mother noticed the first gap. She will notice this one too if you give her the space.

Elena.

Of course he knew about her as well.

I typed: And if I move faster?

Then the reactions become harder to predict. Including mine.

I set the phone down and stood. My shoulders were tight. I walked to the window and looked out at the dark shape of the river in the distance. Somewhere along that water sat the development package that now belonged solely to me. On paper it was a clean victory. In reality it was another stone thrown into water I couldn’t see the bottom of.

Seiberstin was not simply observing.

He was measuring my speed.

I picked up the phone again.

Why help me?

This time the pause was longer.

When the reply came it was shorter than I expected.

I’m not helping you. I’m reducing the number of futures where you become a liability.

The words sat cold on the screen.

I didn’t reply.

After a minute the number went quiet. No further messages. No explanation. Just the single command still sitting at the top of the thread like a verdict.

**Faster.**

I locked the phone and placed it face down on the desk.

Sleep was not an option. I opened a new document and began listing the remaining assets that needed protection, ordered by how quickly Chloe and Elena had moved against them in the original timeline. The list was longer than I wanted it to be. Each item would require the same careful structure, the same midnight meetings, the same risk of being seen.

And each one, apparently, would be noticed by the man who had just told me I was not moving quickly enough.

I worked until the sky began to pale.

When the first light touched the edge of the buildings across the river, I saved the list, closed the laptop, and finally set the phone on the charger.

The confirmation from the lawyer was still there.

Beneath it, Seiberstin’s single word remained unread on the lock screen like a pulse.

I looked at it one last time before the screen went dark.

Faster.

I didn’t know yet whether it was a warning, a command, or a promise.

I only knew that the second asset was safe.

And that safety, like everything else in this new timeline, had already been priced by someone else.